


Home (for Christmas)

by pontmercy44



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Sex, Ben is The Grinch, F/M, Rey has a kid who is the Tiny Tim to Ben’s Scrooge, Rey isn't really a ho ho ho, Snarky Ben, banter is foreplay right?, emotional wreck Rey, his heart grows ten sizes, his heart is not the only thing that grows ten sizes, merry fucking christmas and shalom, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-04 22:05:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16797952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pontmercy44/pseuds/pontmercy44
Summary: “You’re soliciting me, aren’t you?” Ben set his whiskey sour down. The girl scowled, as if she had hoped he would play along, speaking in innuendo. Her flush was so pretty he couldn’t help teasing. “Ah, you are. Why me?”“You’ve had four whiskey sours and a sad look on your face all night.”





	1. Chapter 1

Ben’s mother was, technically, Jewish and his father was, loosely speaking, Lutheran. Ironically, his mother would have scolded him for drinking in a dive bar on Christmas Eve, and his father would have hailed the bartender and ordered a whiskey sour. Judaism, as Han had frequently smarmily reminded Leia when she tried to make Ben and Han participate in some sort of holiday father-son bonding ritual like carol-singing or tree-decorating, was matrilineal. His mother, in turn, always wondered allowed whether Ben’s father had been reading a thesaurus because that was such a big word.

“Hi.” That was one little word, but it caught his attention – or rather, the woman who said it caught his attention, because she had lipstick on her teeth. “Happy Christmas.”

Because he was both his father’s son – an asshole – and his mother’s son – a Jew – Ben remarked, “I’m Jewish, and there’s lipstick on your teeth.”

“Oh, shit.” The woman – girl? – looked very embarrassed all of the sudden.

“I don’t practice. I didn’t even have a bar mitzvah. When I was born my mother insisted I get the old snip-snip and that was the extent of her Jewishness.” Ben made a scissor-like motion with his long fingers. “I’m sorry, I’m drunk. Is telling you I’m circumcised inappropriate?”

The girl flushed pink, as pink as her lipstick. “I meant my teeth – I never wear lipstick.”

Ben took another sip of his third – fourth? – whiskey sour. He wasn’t particularly gregarious on a good day, so why, on Christmas Eve, of all days, he was making obnoxious small talk with a stranger, he wasn’t sure. Very patiently, he asked, “Why are you wearing it now?”

“Because – because…” The girl floundered. Her cheeks turned, adorably, bright red. She seemed to seize on something. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Like I said. I’m a Jew. What does Christmas Eve have to do with you wearing lipstick?”

The girl plunged on, ignoring his quip, as if she’d rehearsed this speech. “Are you lonely? No one should be lonely on Christmas Eve. Even Jewish people.”

Ben blinked at her. “What?”

“You seem lonely.” The girl swallowed hard, as if steeling herself. “You don’t… you don’t have to be. I could keep you company.”

“Oh.” Ben coughed out a laugh at how absurdly forthcoming she was being. “Are you hitting on me?”

“No-o.” The girl drew the word out carefully into two syllables. She didn’t elaborate, and suddenly, she looked horribly embarrassed. She pressed her lips together, smearing the lipstick.

She was a beautiful girl; she didn’t need makeup. It looked almost garish on her. Equally out of place was her dress – black, short, too tight. It was made of a cheap polyester blend material. She worried the hem of it with her chewed, calloused fingers. Her eyes were made up in matching black kohl. They were desperate eyes. Not desperate like other girls’ eyes – not desperate for validation or sex or a husband. They were desperate on a deeper level.

All of the sudden, Ben realized that she had answered his question – why wear lipstick, tonight, if she didn’t ordinarily? – without really answering it.

“You’re soliciting me, aren’t you?” Ben set his whiskey sour down, almost delighted by how absurd this was. This sort of thing didn’t happen to him. It happened to other people, people with more exciting, interesting lives. Now the girl scowled, as if she had hoped he would play along with her, speaking in double entendres and innuendo. She was trying to look mean, scowling, but her flush was so pretty he couldn’t help teasing. “Ah, you are. Why me?”

The girl glanced from side to side as if making sure no one was listening in on their conversation – prudent, considering the topic of conversation. “You’ve had four whiskey sours and a sad look on your face all night.”

“You mean I look like a sucker.”

“You look like you can afford… it.”

“Afford you.” Ben corrected her. She scowled some more. “I can. I’m a lawyer.”

The girl nearly bolted right then and there, falling off of her barstool. On instinct, Ben caught her arm, steadying her. She tried to wrest away and he held her still. He wasn’t sure why he did; it would be no great loss if she ran off. “Jesus, not that kind of lawyer. Mergers and acquisitions.” When she didn’t react except with a suspicious look, he clarified, “Taxes. You do pay taxes, don’t you? How do prostitutes report their income?”

“Fuck you.” Her voice trembled a little, but she apparently still had some dignity. “I’m not a prostitute.”

“What are you, then?” Ben cocked his head, feeling drunk and rude. He was enjoying this, a little too much. He thought, for a wild moment, that maybe he could pay her to sit there and take his verbal abuse all night. “An escort? I thought those were just high-rent prostitutes, for politicians or quarterbacks.”

“I’m… I just need the money.” Oh, that, that worked and he hadn’t expected it to. Her chin wobbled and he wasn’t sure if it was an act. Was she just whoring out her emotions along with her body?

“How much?” Ben intentionally left the question vague. He might have meant, how much do you need? Or, he might have meant l, how much do I have to pay to fuck you and make that pretty little mouth tremble some more?

She stuck her chin out. “A thousand dollars.”

Ben barked out a laugh. “I don’t really know the going rate for hookers but that seems a bit unrealistic. Can you blow me while you do a headstand or something?”

The girl took a deep, long-suffering breath. She looked determined. It was an odd look. It was oddly seductive. It should have turned him off – he didn’t want to fuck someone who saw fucking him as something to be endured a stiff upper lip, for God’s sake. It didn’t. “For a thousand dollars, I can.”

Ben looked at her for a long moment in disbelief. This girl had no business sense, it seemed. She was demanding an outrageous sum. She wasn’t flattering him and making him feel desired and desirable. He knew she didn’t desire him, but he thought she should at least act like she did if she wanted his money.

“Eight-hundred.” He heard himself say, half into his whiskey glass. The glass distorted the words.

“Eight hundred.” The girl repeated, nodding, too quickly. It made him wonder if he should have bid lower. She was obviously desperate.

And so, Ben realized, as he stood up and slowly took a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet, laying it on the bar next to the whiskey sour he didn’t bother finishing, was he.

“They… they say not to get into cars.” The girl hesitated when they walked up to his black beamer on the curb.

“They?” Ben goaded her.

In a small voice, the girl admitted, “People on the… internet.”

“You googled how to be a hooker?” Ben couldn’t help himself; he started laughing.

The girl frowned, looking almost stern and matronly for a moment. “You aren’t sober, are you?”

“If I were, I wouldn’t be paying to fuck you.” Ben observed. If he had been, he also would have known better than to suggest what he suggested next. He was committing a crime. He didn’t need a witness. “I’ll get an Uber.”

“We can walk.”

“Fuck, no. My apartment is on the east side.”

“I’m not comfortable going to your apartment.” The girl said, quite bravely. “No one would know where to look for my body if I went missing.”

Ben snorted. “Did Google tell you that, too?”

“There’s a motel across the road.” The girl forged on. “I want to go there.”

“A motel?” Ben wrinkled his nose. “A motel is for, like, cheap hookers. You’re fucking expensive. I’m blowing my cocaine allowance for the month on you – I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

“Think of it as… role-playing.” The word sounded foreign in the girl’s mouth, and it was only then that Ben realized she had a foreign accent. He wondered if she was faking it, to disguise herself. It was a ludicrous thought. He dismissed it. She clearly hadn’t put that much effort into ensnaring a client. There had been lipstick on her teeth. “You’re meeting your secretary in a sleezy motel. Your wife doesn’t know.”

“I’m divorced.” Ben said, flatly.

Bizarrely, the girl’s face softened. “I knew you were lonely.”

For some reason, Ben cleared his throat, uncomfortable at how naked the emotion was on her features. She looked at him like she… related to him, on some level. It made him feel the need to introduce himself to her, finally. “I’m Ben.”

“Kira.”

“That your real name?”

“No.” Kira’s grin seemed real. “Is Ben your real name?”

“I didn’t realize I was supposed to use a fake name.” Ben admitted, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

“Have you ever done this before?”

“No. Have you? Wait, don’t answer that.” They’d, somehow, as they talked, crossed the road and ended up in front of the moldy old motel. Ben ducked inside before she could answer. He didn’t doubt she would, even if she didn’t mean to – she was a terrible liar. He booked a room, trying to act casual. His ears burned as he fished cash out of his wallet.

There was an ATM outside the glass door of the motel lobby. Ben gestured to it, wordlessly, and Kira nodded, looking embarrassed but somehow relieved – as if now, he couldn’t back out. She stood behind him in silence, at a respectful distance, as he withdrew eight-hundred dollars.

When Ben turned around, Kira was hunched over, holding a device in her palm. It was brightly lit. It was an electronic device. A recording device.

His stomach lurched. “Jesus Christ, are you a cop?”

“No!” Kira tried to hide the screen, her face panicked.

“Why are you recording me?” Ben lunged for the video recorder and she ducked away from him. In that moment, he was angrier at himself – he’d really fucked up this time, worse than the DWI, worse than his divorce, worse than getting fired, worse than punching his father – than he was at her. He was going to go to jail. Prison. Was there a difference? “What the fuck is this?”

He got a hold of her wrist and, none too gently, wrenched the blue-lit palm-sized device from her.

“No!” Kira yelped. He held it out of her reach and with a shuddering sigh, almost a sob, she turned away from him. Apprehensive, Ben looked down at the white, plastic piece of cruddy, outdated technology.

It was a baby monitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, kids. 
> 
> P.S. I’m really in need of some redemptive, happy ending for fucked up people, hot cocoa soaked Christmas cheer this year. It has been. A. Fucking. Year. So yeah, this is going to be self-indulgent fluff and smut. Don’t look too deep into it.


	2. Chapter 2

“Is that a baby?” Ben blinked at the monitor. In blue shades, a small form slumbered peacefully, in the center of a wide, low hotel bed. “Is that your baby?” When she didn’t answer, he said, pointedly, “If it isn’t, and prostitution is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of your criminal behavior – ”

“He’s mine.” Kira sniffed. When he stared at her, blankly, not understanding the significance of that statement, she clarified, “And he’s _not_ a baby, he's a toddler, he’s sixteen months old – ”

“Why the fuck do people think anyone cares how many months old their kid is?” Ben interrupted her.

Kira blinked. “He… he’s one.”

Ben looked back at the video monitor. “He must be very mature for his age.”

The girl looked confused, and neatly nauseous. She’d held her head high and lobbed insults back and forth with him when he’d ribbed her for being a hooker but this – it seemed that to her, this was no laughing matter. “What?”

“My parents didn’t leave me alone overnight until I was sixteen – _years_ , not months.”

Kira’s chin quivered. He sensed he’d touched – no, hammered a nerve. “He – he sleeps through the night.”

“Oh, good. How else would you get any work done?”

It happened so fast he didn’t have time to duck or steel himself. She slapped him, hard. She was breathing hard. “You fucking arsehole.”

“Jesus!” Ben tried to fend her off as she struck at him again, but she kept advancing, repeating various iterations of _you fucking arsehole_ , until suddenly she stopped, her shoulders heaving and crumpling in on themselves. She started sobbing.

Just like the wobble of her chin had done him in, the sobbing did him in. Awkwardly, Ben tried to pat her shoulder. “Hey, don’t – shit, don’t cry.”

“You asked if I’ve ever – ” Kira hiccupped loudly. “ – ever done this before, well I _haven’t_ , I’m not – I’m – not a whore – and I’d never, _ever_ leave my baby alone if I didn’t have to – ”

“I _meant it_ when I said don’t cry, the manager is going to call the cops on us.”

Sniffing pathetically, Kira wiped her snotty nose. “S-sorry. He – he’s asleep in room 224. Which room number are you?”

“Come again?”

“I – if you still want to…” Kira trailed off, blushing furiously. When she saw the look of disbelief that was doubtlessly plastered across his face, she looked, for lack of a better word, humiliated. She started to bargain with him. “I’ll – six-hundred. I’ll stop crying or we can just turn the lights off if I can’t – ”

Ben started laughing, despite himself. “I’m paying you eight-hundred dollars and you want me to _keep the lights off_?”

“You – you just used the present tense. You’re _paying_ me. You haven’t changed your mind?”

Ben raised his brow, confused. “Were you an English major?”

“I _am_ a mechanical engineering major.” Kira admitted.

“You’re a student?” Ben frowned. Unease coiled in his belly. “How – tell me you’re legal. Please, please – ”

“I’m twenty-four.”

“And your name is Kira?” Ben said, sharply, distrustfully.

The girl pinked. “My… my name is Rey and I’m twenty.” 

Ben exhaled slowly, relieved and revolted in turn. He looked her up and down, assessing the cheap, shiny fabric of her too-tight dress. It was nearly see-through under the fluorescent lighting of the motel parking lot. “Did you take out student loans and get in over your head?”

“No, I got pregnant freshman year.” The girl said, flatly.

“That explains the one-year-old.” Ben commented, lamely. “Is prostitution a work-study program these days? I graduated almost a decade ago but – ”

Rey made to slap him again and he ducked.

“I don’t have a _work visa_ , you _absolute twat_.”

“Oh, you _don’t?_ I guess we can’t fuck, then. I’m a rule-follower.” Ben wasn’t sure why he was making light of what was obviously a very dire situation for her. He had always used humor to distance himself from other people’s emotions. His mother had called it a _worrying lack of empathy_. His therapist said it was because he had _too much_ empathy and he was afraid of feeling so much.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Rey looked anywhere but at him. She seemed very small. She seemed to not have even heard his in-poor-taste joke. “His da – the guy who got me pregnant told me to get fucked when I couldn’t make rent this month after paying for textbooks for the spring semester and nursery school and – and fucking _food_. After a few weeks of sleeping in my car it seemed like he might be on to something.”

“I’m sorry.” Ben said, awkwardly, even though getting pregnant wasn’t just a stroke of bad luck, like cancer or something. It was something she’d brought upon herself. And it was something some – most? – people were happy about. I’m sorry was such an _awkward_ thing to say. He decided to add, more sincerely, “He sounds like a piece of shit.”

Rey scowled self-righteously, as if she could tell his _I’m sorry_ was insincere but wanted to explain herself, or make excuses, regardless. “I haven’t got – I haven’t got a mum and dad to take me in. And my son, he’s just got a mum. He’s _just got me_ , so I – I put some lipstick on and left my baby boy alone in a motel room. You seemed like a decent enough bloke – ”

“I seemed like a decent enough bloke?” Ben snorted. “I thought I seemed like a _fucking arsehole_.”

Begrudgingly, Rey amended her statement. “You seemed like you weren’t a serial killer.”

“That’s a very generous assessment, thank you.”

They stood there, awkwardly, for a long moment. Rey seemed as if she was regretting saying too much. She seemed as if she were either trying to think of a way to salvage the situation by awkwardly seducing him or trying to think of a way to make her escape.

For his part, Ben was wondering what decent enough meant. He’d let a young woman – a very, very young woman – solicit him for sex on Christmas Eve. He’d recognized desperation in her eyes and he’d been fully prepared to take advantage of that desperation. She was willing to do anything. He – he was that _anything_. He was the one who was a piece of shit.

Wordlessly, he handed her the stack of fifty-dollar bills – all sixteen of them. He counted them out into her palm to show her that it was all there.

“I – uh.” Rey almost seemed like she wished he hadn’t, and that didn’t make any sense, until it did. She thought he was following through with their agreed transaction. She thought that now that she’d been paid the aforementioned sum she had no choice but to fuck him in a dank motel on Christmas Eve, one eye on her baby monitor.

God, he really was a piece of shit.

“We don’t have to – just take it. No strings attached.” Ben gestured, awkwardly, at her high heels and dress, as if that meant something.

“No strings attached.” Rey repeated, suspiciously.

“No… sex… attached.” Ben elaborated, stuffing his hands into his pockets as if to prove he could keep them to himself.

He’d half expected the girl to burst into grateful tears. He’d been hoping she would. It would feel redemptive, to do something nice for someone. It would be, he supposed, in the Christmas spirit.

She turned red, from rage, not embarrassment. “I don’t want your – your fucking charity.”

“It’s Christmas Eve – ”

“You told me yourself you’re Jewish!” Rey exploded.

“I’m not practicing!” Ben snapped. “I’m practicing being a – a good human being.” He turned to walk away, resolute. “So Merry fucking Christmas and shalom, kid.”

“God damnit – I – come back here and fuck me!” Rey’s voice, so prim and British, sounded almost ridiculous yelling something that vulgar. Ben laughed, tickled by how easily she was provoked, Over his shoulder, he said,

“Nope.”

“I want to fuck you!” She shouted. 

Turning on his heel, Ben crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to fuck me?”

“I want to fuck you.” Her lie was obvious, but so was her pride. Ben had no business psychoanalyzing her, because he was a head case himself, but he did. She didn’t feel she had many options – she was a student, an unwed mother, and judging by her accent, not a citizen and therefore not eligible for public assistance – but she had her dignity, in a sense. She wanted to earn his money.

“Fuck me at my apartment, then.” Ben proposed, not sure whether he was being facetious or serious. 

“What?”

Ben glared at her, already exasperated because he already knew she was going to put up a fight. “A kid shouldn’t spend Christmas in a seedy motel – ”

“I’m not – ”

“Or in your shitty car.”

Rey seemed affronted. “How do you know my car is shitty?”

“It’s the oh-two Saturn, isn’t it?”

Rey’s eyes narrowed. “How do I know you’re not some pervert?”

“You don’t, but at least I don’t seem like a serial killer.” Ben quipped.

Rey didn’t laugh at his joke. She looked nearly bewildered. “So you expect me to believe you’re just, out of the goodness of your heart – ?”

“Oh, no, no, _no, no, no_. My heart is a cold and black.” Ben chortled.

“The goodness of your cold, black heart, then?”

“No.” Ben responded, magnanimously. He was sobering up but he felt drunk with how magnificently stupid and impulsive he was being. “You’re going to fuck me, remember?”

Rey blinked, as if his crudeness shocked her. “Oh.”

“You’re going to fuck me down the hall from your sleeping kid. I’m going to pay you eight-hundred dollars to do it. Then we’re even.” Ben elaborated. When she frowned, he exhaled slowly through his teeth. “My dad was a gambler. He’d put anything up as collateral – his car, mom’s jewelry. He kept it a secret from my mom for a long time. When I was nine, our house was repossessed by the bank on Christmas Eve. He kept saying it would be an adventure. We left my dog with the neighbors. And I woke up Christmas morning in a hotel.”

Ben almost expected this girl – this girl who clearly had had incredibly shitty luck – to lash out at him, saying that he had no business feeling sorry for himself. She didn’t. She almost smiled, and he knew he’d convinced her that he wasn’t a pervert or a serial killer or a _fucking arsehole_ at all. “It wasn’t a shitty motel, though, was it?”

“It was the Hyatt.” Ben admitted, chuckling. “Don’t be a pain in the ass, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... in which Rey isn't really a ho ho ho and Ben isn't really a Grinch.


	3. Chapter 3

“Chinese Restaurants,” Ben told Rey, tapping the menu that was stuck on his fridge with a magnet, “Are _always_ open.”

“Even on Christmas Eve?” Rey spoke in a hushed voice. She was cradling a toddler against his chest, standing awkwardly in the foyer of his townhouse.

The boy looked huge in her thin arms, braced against her hip. Huge and _heavy_ , like a small grown man with denim pants and shoes that could have passed as an old man’s white walking shoes if not for their tiny Velcro straps instead of buckles. He was snoring like an old man, too. Ben had only seen the mop of his golden-brown hair, but he imagined the other side of his head – his face –to be wrinkly and wizened, judging from the sound of his snores. He had thought he’d be smaller, somehow. Maybe there really _was_ a difference between a one-year old and a sixteen-month old.

“ _Especially_ on Christmas Eve.” Ben stressed. “What do you think Jews eat on Christmas Eve?”

“I…” Rey blinked, as if she’d never considered that. She shifted the boy’s weight. “I don’t know. What do you eat on every other day of the year?”

“Schnitzel and gefilte fish. No, I’m just fucking with you. Do you want to put that down?”

“Put what down?”

“That?” Ben gestured to her son.

Rey flushed. “His _name_ is Ari.”

Surprised, Ben laughed out loud before she hushed him, frantically. “Good Jewish name.”

Rey snorted. Even her sound of disdain was hushed, as if it was second nature to whisper and tiptoe and not wake the sleeping toddler. It was not second nature to Ben. His voice was deep and even if he didn’t intend for it to be loud, it carried like an opera singer’s voice. “Is not. It’s Old Norse.”

“Is _too_. It means _lion_ in Hebrew.” Ben said, with an air of superiority. “I went to Hebrew school. Did you go to Old Norse school?”

Rey cracked a smile at that. It was the first real smile he’d seen on her face all night. It was a lovely smile, a smile that held nothing back. Ben hadn’t really considered whether a woman smiling at him was a prerequisite to sleeping with her but suddenly he knew that it was. He didn’t want to see the pinch of stress on a woman’s mouth before he kissed it. He wanted to see a genuine smile, and then he wanted to smush it with his lips.

Her lipstick had worn off. The real color of her lips was better, infinitely. It was peachy, not pink, like the waxy lipstick had made him believe. She didn’t look quite so pale under the gentle halogen lights of his kitchen, rather than the fluorescent lights of the parking lot. Her arms were looped around the sleeping toddler, and her dress was riding up on her thighs. He could see how strong her arms were – rippling with the muscle he supposed only women who toted around a thirty-pound kid all day had.

Smiling, she looked young and unguarded and natural. That was somehow more – _very?_ – attractive to him. He decided he was sick of women manipulating him and lying to him – even lying about the color of their lips. He was sick of forced smiles.

Clearing his throat, Ben gestured down the hall towards the guest bedroom. “Put that down – ”

Rey frowned. “Him.”

“Put _him_ down.” Ben rolled his eyes. She still looked guarded, so he stepped closer and added, contritely, in a low voice, “Please.”

Rey’s eyes darted around the room as if she were wondering which surface he’d want to fuck her on – the sofa? The kitchen counter? The floor? Suddenly, he realized she wasn’t pissed at him for being an ass and calling her son an _it._

Her voice trembled slightly. “You mean – so we can – ”

Ben was struck with that awful guilt again. He was a sick fuck. It was an strange revelation to have in the midst of playing Good Samaritan. He wanted to fuck her, not just as a pretense to help her, but because she’d smiled at him and he’d liked her lips. And her legs. And her arms. And the way her lower lip trembled, because, yes, he really _was_ a sick fuck.

Ben reverted to sarcasm to avoid revealing the fact that he had both a half-chub _and_ a conscience. “Celebrate the great friendship between the Chinese and Jewish people.”

Rey’s face visibly relaxed and _fuck_ , that hurt. She was dreading fucking him. Dreading it and insisting on it, which put him in an odd position. He winced as she retreated down the hallway, her hips swaying slightly with the weight she bore. Her bare feet slapped on the poured-concrete floor, a door creaked, and then she asked, in a hushed voice that still somehow bounced off the floors and walls, “Why have you decorated your Christmas tree in a closet?”

“It’s – ah, wrong door, it’s the next one on the left – it’s a Christmas closet.” Ben half-ran down the hallway to slam the closet door as if she had discovered his sex dungeon, not his completely mundane Christmas closet.

Her grip on the door firm, Rey peered inside at the tree. The ornaments on it glimmered in the low light. It looked almost ominous. “A what?”

Ben rocked on his heels. “White people keep their trees and shit decorated all year long and the day after Thanksgiving – or actually, the day after Halloween, but _fuck those people_ – wheel it out on fucking _wheels_.”

Rey’s mouth twitched. She hitched her son higher on her hip and whispered, “That’s very sad.”

“What is?”’

“Not – throwing tinsel and stringing lights. Not participating in all of the rituals and traditions of Christmas. Just wheeling the tree out of the closet and plugging it in and – _poof_!”

“Poof.” Ben repeated, flatly.

“ _Poof_ , it’s Christmas!” Rey waved one arm, bracing her son with one arm in a surprising show of physical strength. How was she still _standing_ , Ben wondered? He hobbled around for days if he foolishly chose a basket rather than a cart with wheels at the grocery store. “Do you have a Hannukah closet, too?”

Ben was secretly pleased that she could give as good as she got. He’d lobbed snarky one-liners all night, some of them intended to wound or provoke. She’d taken them in stoic silence, or – she’d smacked him. Still, he heard himself saying, as if to defend himself against the sheer ludicrousness of having a Christmas closet, “The closet was my ex-wife’s idea.”

There was a long, awkward silence, and then Rey quipped, “So I take it she wasn’t one of God’s chosen people.”

Ben snorted. She, it seemed, used humor to avoid being mean. He used it to _be_ mean. She was such a _nice_ girl. “No. No, she was a Methodist. My mother almost had coronary when I proposed, since my father was a Lutheran.”

Rey looked perplexed. “How?”

“How was he a Lutheran? I think it involves being dipped in water and prayed over.”

Rey’s nose wrinkled. “But… you’re Jewish.”

“Judaism is matrilineal.” Ben countered. “That means – ”

“I know what it means, arsehole.”

“Oh, good. I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind about me being an arsehole.” Ben toed the wall, scuffing it with his shoe. “Anyways, I didn’t listen to my mom because I _never do_ , and now my we’re _both_ bitter divorcees with… with fucking Christmas closets.”

Rey’s face was very soft. She didn’t pose a question. With the infinite wisdom and patience that Ben imagined came with motherhood, she said, “You didn’t really get divorced because she was a Methodist.”

Ben stared at his shoes, wondering if he could bore a hole through the leather with his gaze. He wasn’t sure why he was telling her all of this. It was word vomit. But as with actual vomit, it felt better splattered on the floor than in his belly. “I thought if she got pregnant it would – you know, fix things. That we would have something in common again. She got pregnant after a few months but… but it turned out we didn’t even have the pregnancy in common.”

“Oh.” Rey said, in a small, breathy voice.

“He was my boss’s boss. He – God, he’s fucking _old_ and _bald_. He drove a gold Lexus. So that was – that was a crippling blow to my self-esteem.”

Rey nodded, sagely. “No wonder you seemed like you hadn’t had a decent shag in ages.”

“Fuck off.” Ben laughed, surprised by how mean she’d been. He liked it. It made him feel less sorry for himself, and less sorry for how rude he’d been to her all night. “I’m sorry for saying fuck so much around your kid. And I’m sorry for doing it again just now. You like soup dumplings?”

Rey smiled, shyly, ducking behind a curtain of chesnut hair as she nodded, and he knew he was a goner.

They ate soup dumplings and fried rice on the sofa in his primly, perfectly decorated living room, while the baby monitor crckled and the boy slept down the hall. It was utterly silent save the sound of chewing, until Rey gasped, “Ah, shit!”

“What?

“I’ve spilled sweet-and-sour – ”

“Rey, don’t – it’s not – ” Ben tried to stop her from frantically dabbing the sofa cushion with a napkin. He hadn’t gotten her a glass of water because he was a shitty host as well as a shitty person, so she spat onto the velvet to wipe at the orangey mark. When she did, the blood between his ears flowed between his thighs. In a croaky voice, he said, watching her furiously rub, “It’s – fucking velvet. How completely fucking impractical. It was – it was – she picked it. The sofa, I mean. I never liked it.”

Rey stopped scrubbing and looked up at him. Her cheeks were flushed. “You didn’t?”

“No.”

Rey looked very solemnly at him. “Then we should leave a stain on it.”

Ben raised his brow, reaching for the little packets of squishy black sauce on the coffee table. “Soy sauce?”

“No, I mean…” Rey trailed off. She looked straight ahead at the blank wall, refusing to face him. Very slowly, she reached down and unbuckled her ridiculous strappy heels, taking them off with her ankles still primly together. Then, she leaned back against the tufted cushions and spread her knees apart.

And finally, she turned her head to the side and looked straight at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which Ben has a Christmas closet but no sex dungeon


	4. Chapter 4

Ben was rarely at a loss for words – snarky words, to be specific. His mother had despaired over what she called his _poor attitude_ for years. He turned to sarcasm and gallows humor and sometimes, flat-out _meanness_ , when he didn’t know what else to say – like when someone said something well-meaning, or complimented him, or commented on the weather. 

So, naturally, when Rey spread her legs on his velvet sofa, he said, like an absolute idiot, “Huh?”

She drew her knees back together, tugging at the hem of her short black dress. The shy, stuttering girl was back, her face crimson. “We – we can put a towel down, if you _don’t_ want to leave stains – ”

“Fuck, no.” Ben straightened up, tottered for a moment on his knees on the plush cushions, and then toppled forward over her, catching himself on his arms as she twisted underneath the cage of his body as if she was frightened he would crush her like a felled tree. “I’m going to fucking _ruin_ this stupid upholstery.”

The girl’s lips twitched for a moment, and then she giggled, drawing her knees up to her chest and crossing her arms over her breast as her laughter grew more hysterical and her stomach cramped. Her knees were stacked atop one another, her legs bent at an odd angle to her body. Her dress rode up as she wheezed with mirth.

She wasn’t wearing panties. Even with her legs held tightly together and tucked up, the pink, damp seam of her body was visible to him at this angle. The fact that she hadn’t meant to make her cunt visible – as opposed to when she’d spread her legs, propositioning him – only made it more alluring.

Ben stopped laughing. On hands and knees over her, he looked straight at her cunt, and then at her face. It was nearly as pink as her pussy. She was still grinning, un-self-consciously. Then, she looked down between their bodies and saw what he was looking at. She said, her breath hitching on the end of a giggle, “Oh.”

“Oh.” Ben repeated. He looked down at her pretty pink lips and then her _other_ pretty pink lips. He was fully dressed and they were lined up all wrong – he was on top of her, predatory in stance, but instead of being splayed out pliant and ready to do it in the missionary position, she was twisted oddly. For some reason the only thing he could think about, though, was how he’d never put his dick in a woman at that angle – not from behind, not from the front, but from the _side_ , with her bony hip pressing into his abdomen. “Do you have a condom?”

“No.”

Ben moaned softly into the upholstery, dropping his weight onto her and making her squeak and flail her arms. “You’re the worst fucking prostitute, I swear…”

“Oy!”

“Stay put.” Ben grumbled as he climbed off of her and off of the couch with no small effort. He lumbered down the hallway, stripping as he went. The condoms in his bedside drawer were nearly expired, but not quite. A true Christmas miracle, Ben thought, as he stalked back to the velvet sofa, fully nude.

Rey hadn’t stayed put. She was spread eagle on the couch, as if she thought he wanted her in a classically submissive position. As if they were going to have vanilla sex. He didn’t want that. He’d liked the idea of her being all twisted up and a bit uncomfortable. It seemed fitting. “I told you to stay put.”

“You’ve got a _massive dick_.” Rey sat up, looking horrified. “Oh my _God_.”

“A massive dick with a massive dick.” Ben laughed, putting his hands on his hips and looking down at said massive dick. It was fully erect, somehow. He wasn’t quite sure how. Recently – who was he kidding, since his divorce – it had taken a bit of coaxing to stand at attention. Porn didn’t really do it for him. The hot blonde next door who waved as she jogged by didn’t really do it for him.

This skinny, smart-ass kid with a kid of her own and an air of barely concealed desperation did it for him. Really, really did it for him.

To his surprise, that odd, tender look crossed Rey’s face. It was especially odd considering her face was roughly ten inches from his cockhead. “You aren’t a massive dick.”

“I’m not?” Ben tore the condom packet open. He dropped the foil on the floor and held the sticky latex sheath between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a peace offering.

“You’re… quite sweet.” Rey breathed the last word. Her eyes were very wide. She kept glancing shyly at his erection and at the condom, as if she wasn’t sure how one would fit on or in the other.

“Are you…” Ben stopped himself and chortled, remembering what – who – was sleeping down the hallway. “I almost asked if you’re a virgin.”

Rey cracked a smile. “Not a virgin.”

“Just the worst hooker ever.” He rolled the condom on, proud that he could still do that without looking and fumbling.

“Arsehole.”

“That’s more like it.” This time, he mounted her and the couch awkwardly but carefully. She didn’t have to be afraid he wouldn’t catch himself on his arms and crush her. She didn’t curl in on herself. On hands and knees, Ben frowned down at her. Bracing himself on one arm, he rearranged her with the other. For as stubborn as she was, she was physically pliant.

Curled up and twisted away from him, she looked vulnerable. Her brow creased with confusion, and then her whole face crunched up as the tip of his dick prodded her cunt. As he eased in, she drew her legs tighter to herself and closer to each other, making the channel of her body somehow even narrowed than he’d guessed it would be from the set of her hips. 

“Shit, fuck, you feel really tight like this.” Ben managed to say, blinking at the eggshell paint on the wall behind the sofa. Eggshell. God, that day of comparing paint swatches had been nightmarish. He closed his eyes and rocked his hips.

Under him, Rey squirmed, pink-cheeked. “I’ve never done it like this before.”

“For money?” Ben half-chuffed.

“Like – oh, sod off.” Rey shoved gently at his shoulders, but he knew she didn’t want him to get off of her. Her fingernails dug in and she couldn’t wrap her legs around him in this odd, contorted position, but she was rubbing her thighs together.

As his hips jolted over and over again against her naked skin, perpendicular to her smooth pale thighs, Ben balanced himself on one hand. Her clit was in easy reach. It would have been regardless – he had arms like a Sasquatch – but it was especially so with her hips twisted and trapped. He rubbed it in counterpoint to his steady thrusts.

“Thought – _ooh_ – thought you’d be more of a talker.” Rey panted. She quivered, a shudder rippling up her spine. It reverberated against Ben’s forearm – the one he was bracing himself with.

“Thought you’d be more of a crier.” Ben retorted, his voice embarrassingly high-pitched. He pinched her clit gently and she whimpered. Fucking from behind had two distinct advantages: he didn’t have to see the woman’s face and see how disappointed she was _and_ he could see her ass jiggling.

In this position, Ben could see both her face and her ass. He could kiss her. Hunching over her, he asked, his breath fanning over her humid cheeks, “Are you a no-kissing kind of prostitute?”

Rey turned her cheek to the side, huffing a little laugh. “No – I mean _yes_.”

Ben snorted and kissed her bicep instead of her mouth. He could have made a snarky comment about how he ought to be able to kiss her wherever he liked for eight-hundred dollars, but he couldn’t even muster the ire to pretend he didn’t think he was getting his money’s worth. Her skinny little ass was wriggling, her tits were bouncing gently, and as much as she tried to cross her arm across her chest and keep her thighs together, she couldn’t stop wriggling and bouncing.

Inspired, Ben thrust harder. His balls swung weighty and tight against the crease where her ass cheeks met her thighs. With a squeak, Rey arched her back for a moment, and then curled in tighter, her mouth making funny, non-sensical shapes as she said silent words. Her breasts thumped against her skinny ribcage. They weren’t heavy, cumbersome breasts but he was thrusting so hard they recoiled as if they were.

Ben wanted to come on her tits. Pulling out, he yanked off the condom and slingshotted it towards the tile floor of the kitchen, breathing hard through his nose. Braced on one arm, he tugged his cock frantically, rocking his hips as if he was still inside her.

When he orgasmed, he fell over, keening. He collided with the back of the velvet sofa, his arm giving out. His other fingers curled into her sex, holding her in place but not really stimulating her any more as he huffed into her hair, exhausted and pleased beyond measure.

Rey blinked down at his cum on her belly. Her hand traced through it, almost cautiously. When her palm was coated with semen, she smeared her hand across the velvet upholstery.

“Like that scene in Titanic.” She said, when she saw him staring.

Ben started laughing. He muffled his laughter in her hair. His fingers were still between her sticky, sweaty thighs. As he laughed, they wriggled about curiously. She stopped laughing and stared up at him, as if she was entranced, as he fingered her.

He half expected Rey to protest that he’d gotten what he paid for and that this – her pleasure – wasn’t part of the deal. He didn’t want her to. He wanted to keep going. He wanted her to cum.

When she did, she stretched her arms above her head, dangling her cum-smeared hands over the upholstered arm of the velvet sofa, and stretched like a cat. A string of breathy profanity that could have made him blush if he hadn’t just been balls deep in her dribbled from her parted lips.

Rey’s little outstretched hand – the messy one – reached up and around his head, past his too-big ears and sex hair. It looped around the nape of his neck. She drew him down to her and kissed _him_ , her breath humid and salty from the soy sauce.

Three hours later, Ben stumbled out of bed on wobbly legs at five in the morning. He tucked the blankets back around Rey, pissed in the dark, got himself a glass of water to wash the taste of stale whiskey sours out of his mouth, and then tip-toed down the hallway back to bed. He didn’t want to wake up her sleeping toddler with his one-eyed monster exposed. Euphemism and tact were not his strengths. 

Rey had left the door to the Christmas closet open. The dark but perpetually-decorated tree stood inside like a spectre. Ben studied it for a moment. He came to a split-second decision and acted just as quickly. As he lurched forward and pulled the tree out of the closet, the wheels base of the tree ran over his left foot. Swearing, Ben hopped down the hallway on one foot, bracing himself on the eight-foot tree and pushing it in front of him.

In the living room, Ben plugged in the tree so he could see what he was doing. The lights glowed and suddenly the tree didn’t look like the ghost of Christmas past anymore. Blinking in the bright light, Ben felt a little bit like a cheat. The tree was already decorated. It was too easy.

 _Poof._ It was Chrismtas.

But it didn’t quite feel like Christmas.

Ben remembered the longing look on Rey’s face as she’d talked about the rituals and traditions of Christmas. One by one, he plucked the ornaments off of the tree and piled them on the ground. He didn’t bother putting them away in the closet. They were going to be hung back on the tree, probably more haphazardly than his ex-wife had hung them, in a matter of hours. Slowly, he unwound the long string of lights.

When Ben got to the end of the string of lights, he held a glowing coil in his hand. he tree was empty and dark. With one last tug, he unplugged the lights and plunged the living room into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Smutmas!
> 
> P.S. I don't have anything in the works right now, but I'm open to suggustion. I'd like to focus on shorter pieces in the future because I find it's more challenging to keep the plot concise and still pack an emotional punch.


End file.
